


The Art of Dying

by SonjaJade



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: After Life, F/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 19:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10472514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonjaJade/pseuds/SonjaJade
Summary: It’s been hundreds of years, and Sesshomaru’s time is finally up.





	

The world around them had changed so very much in the 1,332 years since they mated.  Civilization had morphed and changed and rose and fell in the arenas of knowledge and power and morality.  The second ice age had come and gone, the earth had purged itself of most of humanity now, and now the two of them were hunkered in a cave rather than a palace or a house or an apartment.  
   
“It’s almost time, Rin,” he said to her through his mark that he’d placed on her shoulder over a thousand years ago.  
   
“I know, my love.  I know.”  He was lying on his side, in his dog form.  His breath was fast and panting, and his tongue was lolled out the side of his mouth.  His nose was dry and warm, the once bright magenta stripes near his muzzle were faded with age, the crescent moon a dull gray-blue…  Sesshomaru, the last Inu no Taisho and Aristocratic Assassin, was dying.  
   
Rin’s hands ran softly through his fur, watching his faded gold eyes blink slowly over and over.  His youki was so weak now, he hadn’t been in his humanoid form for over three years.  That was when they’d made the decision to die together.  To her left sat the ceremonial items for jigai…  They knew it would be today, and they were neither one afraid.  
   
“Rin…  I want to apologize to you…”  Gods… even the voice that emanated through their mate mark was weak now.  “I wanted to give you…  I wanted you to bear my hanyou pups so badly…  I didn’t know when I made you immortal that I would render you sterile.  I’m sorry, my love.”  
   
Rin’s eyes were tearing up.  “Sesshomaru,” she whispered, “it’s alright.  I have lived a very, very long and happy life with you.  I wouldn’t change anything about our life together.”  She leaned forward and kissed him on the corner of his dry doggy lips.  “I love you more than anything that has ever existed.  You are my world.”  
   
His tail thumped weakly against the soft dirt of the cave and he smiled weakly.  “It hurts…”  
   
“What hurts, dearest?”  
   
“Everything.  My bones are aching, my body is throbbing… my heart is breaking because I’m making you take your life.”  
   
A single tear slid down her tired face.  “Nonsense.  I couldn’t live without you anyway, nor would I want to.”  Rin watched as her mate closed his eyes.  “Besides, we’ll be reunited with our first breath in the next world we come to.  And we’ll be together like we’ve always been.”  
   
They were quiet for a while, Rin sensing the end was now quickly coming.  She unsheathed the dagger by her side, a gift he’d had made for the pup they’d hoped to have.  His fang would end her life, much like his other fang, the one of his father, had saved her so long ago.  A soft breeze floated through the air.  All the sudden, she felt panic coming from her powerful and fearless mate.  
   
“Rin…” he nearly whined in her mind.  Never had he shown fear to her before, but she could feel it now, thick and frightening, as she’d never known him to be afraid of anything before.  
   
“Shh,” she soothed.  “Just let go, I’ll be right by your side.”  Her hand trembled as she brought the dagger’s tip to the exposed part of her belly.  Then just as suddenly, that fearful feeling subsided and she heard the deep chuckling she so loved to hear from him.  
   
“I wish I could have made love to you one last time.”  
   
“Lecher,” she teased.  “Don’t worry, we can rut for days without stopping when we get to the other side.”  Rin could feel it now, the chain reaction of vital organs beginning to shut down.  It felt like a wind up toy that was slowing…  “I love you, Sesshomaru.  I will be with you when you arrive in hell.”  
   
The panting dog beside her began to seemingly calm, the harsh breathing beginning to slow and the breaths themselves becoming longer and more drawn out with each passing minute.  The demon lord’s closed eyes were rolling back… a tremor raced through his flesh, and then he was still for a long moment before taking another labored breath.  
   
“I love you, Rin…” he said in a voice barely above a whisper in her mind.  
   
With a shaky laugh, she replied, “I thought you didn’t repeat yourself.”  
   
“I lied…” he rasped, and with a final shiver, he gave up his last breath and was still.  
   
Rin could feel the last of his heartbeats thudding through their mate mark, and as tears streamed from her chocolate brown eyes, she shoved the dagger into her guts, crying out in pain and sorrow.  She jerked the blade sharply across her midsection, then flopped face first into the dirt, draping her arm across Sesshomaru’s body with the very last of her strength.  As his heart pumped for the last time, the last of Rin’s lifeblood poured from her, and as promised, they left this world together.

* * *

That night, a nomad tribe of surviving humans sat around a small fire.  The chief’s son had walked behind some trees to take a leak and he looked up at the sky.  Perplexed at what he saw, he came running back to the camp.  “Father, look at that!”  He pointed to the crescent moon hanging in the west.  “I’ve never seen those two stars before!”  
   
His father looked up and furrowed his brow.  “Hmm.  I guess we have two new stars to add to our maps.”  The tribe looked up to find two brilliantly glowing stars, large and bright, nestled close together in the arm of the moon.  They seemed to be twinkling like mad, more than the other stars in the heavens, and they looked as if they’d been placed there deliberately by the hand of God himself.  “They’re beautiful.”  
   
“Yeah…  They remind me of twins or something,” the boy said.  
   
“Or lovers,” his mother added.  
   
“It looks like they live in the moon!” one of the tribe’s children exclaimed.  
   
The chief nodded.  “Indeed.  But isn’t it funny that we’ve not noticed those two before?  Two stars that bright showing up suddenly is just weird…”  
   
His wife patted his arm.  “Just take it for the thing of beauty that it is, dear.  Don’t think too much about it.”  Those around the fire agreed, and turned their faces skyward once more to look at them.

* * *

In the darkness of hell, Sesshomaru awoke with Rin in his arms.  She stirred, then raised her head.  They were clothed just as they were the day he marked her, their bodies restored to the ages they were at the time of their union.  “Are you alright?” they asked in tandem.  
   
Rin giggled.  “Yes.  It feels good to be able to see your human form again,” she whispered as he gathered her small body to him.  
   
“And we now truly have eternity.  It’s not as if we can die a second time,” he murmured against her silky hair.  A deep, dark chuckle began in his chest, rumbling out through his nose.  “I believe you said we could rut for days without stopping, little one.”  
   
Rin grinned as she felt him tugging eagerly at her obi.  “Lecher,” she smirked as she made no move to stop him. 


End file.
